More vintage photo snapshots

Here is another collection of vintage photo snapshots and slides, depicting (mostly) locations I have visited during various road trips across the U.S. and Canada. As before, these are mostly paired with my own photos of the same or similar locations.

Entering Idaho

Idaho was one of the last states I visited in the Lower 48, mostly because its location is not en route to any destination I've ever been interested in visiting. In 2021, I made the 110 mile drive north from South Jordan, Utah in order to set foot in the state and finally cross it off my list. I was struck by how much the Idaho welcome sign on Interstate 15 reminded me of the old Yahoo! logos. As shown in the top photo, the state once made use of a more traditional (but less eye-catching) style of design.

Rhode Island State House

Rhode Island's capitol building is quite impressive, especially given the diminutive size of its home state. I don't have a date for this vintage photo, but it's clearly very old given how much the area surrounding the capitol has grown in the decades since.

"Old Faithful" geyser, Yellowstone National Park

There's not a whole lot to say about the state of Wyoming, other than it being the location of Yellowstone National Park and the famous "Old Faithful" geyser. These two photos depict Old Faithful across the years, juxtaposing an earlier view from an unknown date with a color Kodachrome slide taken in 1962. As of this writing, I haven't yet made it to Yellowstone myself.

Denver, Colorado

I visited Denver in 2021, during the same trip on which I first visited the Grand Canyon. I joined a somewhat unimpressive ghost tour one night, which met up in front of the state capitol building. One of my antique photos shows a view of the rear of the building some unknown number of decades prior.

Winnipeg, Manitoba

I visited Winnipeg in 2022, and I want to say that I passed by this spot more than once during my initial travel into the downtown area. Unfortunately, I never got a photo of it since I was behind the wheel of my car at those times. The current sign looks nothing like the one pictured in the old photo, if indeed it has the same placement.

Street in Old Montreal, unknown date

I've been to Montreal multiple times, and the earliest history of the city is concentrated in its oldest district near the St. Lawrence River, known colloquially as Le Vieux Montréal. Despite my multiple visits, I have been unable to determine the exact location of this photo.

Bonsecours Market, Montreal, 1880s

The Bonsecours Market is a historic fixture in Old Montreal, serving as a major tourist and historical destination and housing plenty of local artisan and souvenir shops that I've visited on each of my trips to the city. This antique photo print, dating to sometime in the 1880s, is the oldest in my vintage collection. The surroundings have changed dramatically in the many decades since this was taken.

Nelson's Monument, Montreal, circa 1890

One final Montreal site... Nelson's Monument (aka Nelson's Column) was erected in 1809 in memory of English hero Horatio Nelson. 121 years later, a competing monument recognizing French hero Jean Vauquelin was erected across the way in what is present-day Place Vauquelin. Each monument can be seen when standing in front of the other. According to the Library of Congress, my stereoview image of the Nelson Monument and adjacent marketplace dates to 1890.

Austin, Texas, 1929

My state's capital city is today an overcrowded hellscape, an exponentially overgrown college town with an ever exploding population. This 1929 view, taken from the capitol dome, shows an Austin of an earlier time when things were much quieter. Compare the roads in 1929 with traffic on an average day in the city in 2013, or even worse, today.

Nashville, Tennessee

The writing on the back of the photo states "looking northwest on 6th St. Nashville." I believe the location is actually off 5th Avenue, based both on the radio shop sign at left, which appears to read "Fifth Ave Radio Shop Auto Service Home," and the apparent church spire off in the distance, on the right side of the street and immediately behind the Esso sign. The photo location appears to be just northwest of Commerce Street, facing northwest.

Beachfront scene, unknown location and date

I don't know where or when this vintage beachfront scene was photographed, but the site is reminiscent of similar beachfront locations I've visited during trips to California and Florida. My photo was taken with a cell phone in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, about 33 miles north of Miami, which very well could have been near the site of its vintage counterpart.

Corpus Christi shoreline, 1951

I visited Corpus Christi in 2021 as part of a group weekend trip. On our night in the city, we visited the shoreline and went on a nighttime walk past the wharf where the U.S.S. Lexington is moored. The ship, finally decommissioned in 1991, now functions as a museum, which we visited the next day. This 1951 photo is dated forty years earlier, so the ship shown in the distance is clearly a different one.

Nova Scotia, circa 1920

Rural Nova Scotia is characterized by its abundance of greenery and picturesque valleys. This stereoview, which I believe dates to circa 1920, plays into the province's Acadian heritage with its depiction of a traditionally clad Acadian woman standing overlooking over one such valley on the shore of Minas Basin. My companion photo was taken looking down at the Bras d'Or Lake, on Cape Breton Island.

Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Baddeck, Nova Scotia

The Alexander Graham Bell Museum is worth a visit if you're ever on Cape Breton Island. Bell's achievements and experimentation went far beyond the telephony for which he is most well known, touching on many other fields including sign language, metal detection, and participation in the construction and inaugural flight of Canada's first powered aircraft, the Silver Dart. I don't know exactly when this Kodachrome slide was taken (presumably during the 1950s based on the vehicles in the parking lot), but my companion photo was taken decades later in October of 2015.

Rideau Canal, 1967

This view of the Rideau Canal in Ottawa, Ontario is only a few minutes' walk from Parliament Hill. To the right in the photos is the Fairmont Château Laurier hotel, named after Wilfrid Laurier, the seventh Prime Minister of Canada. During the wintertime the canal, once frozen over, becomes a public skating area.

Bourbon Street, New Orelans, 1972

The most famous street in New Orleans, the legendary Bourbon Street is the site of numerous clubs, shops, and even (if you go far enough) residential buildings. I first visited New Orleans in 2003, and snapped a photo of the crowds on a weekend night during Jazz Fest. Finding vintage photos of Bourbon Street is fairly easy, but finding one of the same view (even if slightly farther back and from a slightly different angle) is a treat.

Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto, 1970s

Nathan Phillips Square is the site of Toronto's now iconic City Hall building and fountains, with its large "Toronto" sign boldly proclaiming the name of Canada's largest city. The square, which opened to the public in 1965, includes a reflecting pool whose east end is spanned by three concrete arches. This Kodachrome from sometime in the 1970s depicts these arches, which were dedicated in 1989 as the Freedom Arches. I've visited the square many times, most recently in October 2023 when it was the site of dueling Israeli/Palestinian protests, but my first visit to the attraction was six years earlier in 2017.

View from the Philadelphia Art Museum, 1963

This view, looking down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway from the steps of the Museum of Art in Philadelphia, is one of the most iconic in America thanks to the 1976 Best Picture Oscar Winner, Rocky. This spot is a perennial tourist destination, and I visited it myself on my first visit to Philadelphia in 2015. The city skyline off in the distance has definitely grown over the past sixty-plus years.

Alaska Highway in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, 1969

This year, I finally realized a longstanding goal of driving up to Alaska and back. Historic "Mile Zero" of the Alaska Highway is located in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, and while I didn't get a picture of that particular historical marker, I did get one of the current starting point marker. The Kodachrome slide in my collection dates back to 1969.